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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Conflicting Accounts On Chopper Claims; Pilots May Have Shut Down Wrong Engine; ISIS: American Woman Killed In Airstrike

Aired February 06, 2015 - 16:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE LEAD. The National Lead now, NBC News has begun an internal investigation into the most watched news anchor in America, Brian Williams of "Nightly News," for repeatedly telling a false story in which he claimed to have been on a helicopter in Iraq in 2003 that came under RPG and small arms fire.

Two people with direct knowledge of the investigation tell CNN's Brian Stelter that the network is reinvestigating the events from 12 years ago and trying to contact some of the soldiers who have now publicly contradicted Williams' accounts.

Williams has since apologized, of course, for saying his was the helicopter in this convoy that was hit by the RPG, but he has been less willing to publicly discuss other stories he's told about his chopper coming under fire, about his fearing for his life and on and on.

Yesterday on THE LEAD, we interviewed one of the pilots in that convoy, former Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rich Krell, seen in Iraq with Williams in 2003. That's him on the right. He told us that Williams was in his helicopter and though they were not hit by an RPG, they did take some small arms fire.

That seemed to many observers to confirm some of Williams' stories over the years, but after that interview, three other members of that unit challenged Krell's account. Everyone agrees that Krell was the pilot in that convoy.

But Krell, who served honorably, now says that faced with these accounts from his battle buddies that contradict his, he is, quote, "questioning my memories," unquote.

Joining me now to discuss all this is Travis Tritten, the "Stars and Stripes" reporter who broke the Williams story. Thanks so much for being here, great reporting.

So let me start with the fact that you have been in contact with the troops who have been calling out Brian Williams. As we have continued to hear different versions of what happened, Brian Williams' apology, Krell's story which he has since dialed back, what's been their reaction?

TRAVIS TRITTEN, CAPITOL HILL REPORTER, "STARS AND STRIPES": I think first of all, that they were happy to have the record clarified. They were happy that Brian Williams came out and said that he wasn't on this Chinook that was forced down by RPG and small arms fire.

You know, for them, even though it was a flawed apology, I think that it was enough that they want to move on. They are looking for closure.

TAPPER: They have been disputing his report long before he started talking about being in a helicopter that was hit by an RPG, which as far as I can tell was a few years ago, maybe 2013, and then again last week. They have been disputing Brian Williams' account of what happened that day since 2003 when he did that report. What are they saying?

TRITTEN: These guys remember very clearly watching this initial report from Kuwait during the invasion and their initial impression was that it was misreported. So they have kept that all these years and each time it's rehashed in various forms, it kind of reopens that old wound for them. You know, this last time, I think it was just kind of a tipping point for them.

TAPPER: The troops you spoke with said that they tried to contact NBC back when this happened, 2003-2004. Did they hear back? Was there any response?

TRITTEN: None of the guys I talked to said that they had tried to get a correction or contacted the network, but that doesn't surprise me that one of them did contact, because they feel so strongly about this and it's something that they have held in for so long.

It's two companies worth of guys who are out there so it doesn't surprise me that one of them tried to get some type of correction or retraction.

TAPPER: The pilot of Williams' helicopter who wrote an op-ed in the "New York Post," I haven't spoken to him, I don't know if you have.

TRITTEN: Chris, no, I haven't spoken with him.

TAPPER: So he said the only thing that hit their helicopter was dust and nothing that Williams reported in 2003 was accurate. I want to play some of what Brian Williams reported from 2003 in which there is this moment where somebody says that there was small arms fire coming into the convoy. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Indeed, just before we're able to make our drop, radio traffic makes clear this routine mission is running into trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire on the way in! We currently are not under fire, not under fire, but relook for some type of security -- over.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: So there is this moment where somebody's saying our helicopter was taking small arms fire and we -- it's not taking it now but they were and we need to find some place for security. That's in the radio. Do you have any idea what that was in reference to?

TRITTEN: I do, actually. I spoke with the flight engineer on Williams' Chinook, Joseph Miller. What he told me as Williams and the NBC crew actually, they had been given a headset and they had taken a microphone and put in an earpiece of the headset so they could pick up the radio communications between the company that they were in and another company of Chinooks that was flying a separate mission in the opposite direction. So what you're hearing is that radio chatter from that other company that was coming under fire.

TAPPER: It's fascinating. Today, former NBC nightly news anchor, Tom Brokaw disputed some claims made in the "New York Post" and other places that he wanted Brian Williams fired. He released a statement saying quote, "I have neither demanded nor suggested Brian be fired. His future is up to Brian and NBC News executives."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but what about the troops from the mission? Do they want Brian Williams to lose his job or is it enough that he apologized? They just want to get on with their lives?

TRITTEN: Yes, I don't think they want to see him fired at all. I don't think they hold any harsh ill will toward him. What they wanted was the record to be cleared. They wanted him to make a public apology and say that he was not on that Chinook that was hit by RPGs and small arms fire. Once they got that, they were more or less satisfied. One of them told me I don't want to kick him while he's down.

TAPPER: Well, great reporting, Travis. Thank you so much for doing it and for coming here and talking to us. Really appreciate it. Travis Tritten, "Stars and Stripes."

Coming up, final seconds from Flight 235, new details just in from the black boxes show problems started almost immediately after takeoff, but did the pilot also make a critical error before the crash?

Plus, President Obama is under some rhetorical fire for talking about ISIS and reminding Americans that at one point, Christians brutally killed in the name of God, too. That story ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We are going to turn now to other world news. We now have some answers about what may have caused TransAsia Flight 235 to crash Wednesday in Taiwan.

The Taiwanese Aviation Safety Council says that both engines lost power and that the stall warning went off five times in the cockpit before the plane clipped a bridge and plunged into a river, 35 people were tragically killed.

Amazingly, 15 survived, eight are still missing. CNN's aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, joins us with the latest. Rene, the black boxes were recovered. What have authorities gleaned from them about why those two engines lost power?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: At this point, Jake, investigators know what happened. They still don't know why it happened. Was this pilot error? Was this all mechanical?

Tonight, newly downloaded data from the plane's recorders not only reveal this plane was gliding without engine power. It also reveals the pilot's final conversation during those tense moments before impact.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): Newly downloaded data from TransAsia Flight 235's recorders reveal problems started almost immediately after takeoff. Thirty seven seconds into the flight, alarms sound, engine two is having a problem. But it appears pilots reduced power to engine one and eventually shut it off.

By now, engine two has failed. For 1 minute and 6 seconds, there's nothing powering the plane. Five stall alarms sound. Then an emergency call from the cockpit.

Speed alerts warn the plane is going too slow. The crew tries to restart the engine, but it's too late. Nearly 2 minutes after the first warning alarm, the plane crashes into a river.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Once they shut the left engine down, when that wasn't the engine with the problem, the flight was doomed because they just didn't have enough altitude and time to really restart.

MARSH: The aircraft could have flown on just one engine. The question now is whether pilot error contributed to the crash. Pilots have switched off the wrong engine before.

SCHIAVO: This happens more than people might realize. I know of at least 15 crashes killing 185 people where the pilots shut off the wrong engine.

MARSH: Investigators are still trying to determine if pilots of TransAsia Flight 235 shut off the engine mistakenly or if it was due to a mechanical issue. The mother of one of the pilots defended her son's actions.

CHEN TSAI-KUEY, TRANSASIA PILOT'S MOTHER (through translator): My son's life was exchanged for the lives of many others. This is worthwhile. Even though my heart is broken, I am proud to have such a son. What he did was the right thing.

MARSH: More than 30 people died and more than a dozen survived. The search for missing bodies continues.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MARSH: I spoke with several people today, several analysts who say these pilots were heroes to the hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who lived in those apartment buildings that they managed to avoid. They did say, though, pilot error is still on the table.

We know investigators are saying the same thing. That being said, the airline, they have ordered all of their pilots to undergo testing and exams before they are able to fly again. They want to make sure that if a situation comes up, these pilots know exactly how to react.

TAPPER: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you so much. Captain John Gadzinski is a commercial pilot who flies 737s and is the former safety director for the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations. He joins us live from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Captain, thanks so much for being here.

If true, and obviously we are still waiting for all the information, but if true, how could the pilot have accidentally shut down the wrong engine? Is it that easy to do?

CAPTAIN JOHN GADZINSKI, FORMER DIRECTOR OF SAFETY, COALITION OF AIRLINE PILOT ASSOCIATIONS: Given the type of environment they are operating in, believe it or not, it is actually easier than you think to shut off the wrong engine.

In fact, that's one of the things that an instructor normally gives you in training, they try to get you to shut down the wrong engine. Every airline pilot that I know of has gone through some kind of training where they will fail one engine and give a fire bell on the other engine to force, to try and trick the pilot into shutting down both of his engines.

Unfortunately, for the first time you see that, a lot of the pilots do make that mistake. That is a skill that needs to be learned and reinforced in the simulator and there are two kinds of checklists.

There's your normal checklist that allows you to fly the airplane and go through all your normal procedures for approach and landing and so forth and so on, then there's an emergency procedures checklist.

What those do is they try and get a pilot to slow down and become much more methodical, much more purposeful, to concentrate on controlling the aircraft first and then mitigating any type of human factors or crew errors that could go on in this kind of a situation.

TAPPER: Is it possible to steer the plane if both engines lose power?

GADZINSKI: Well, you need some kind of energy to fly the airplane for a sustained period of time. So if you lose power, as long as you have altitude and air speed, you can control the airplane.

But if you are trying to -- if you are trying to keep the airplane airborne and you are sacrificing your air speed to avoid a building or tower or road or cars or people.

Then at some point in time you are going to run out of air speed and then one wing will stall before the other and then the wing that's flying will literally fly around and corkscrew the airplane. That kind of looks like exactly what happened -- that would normally occur.

TAPPER: Do you think from this dramatic dash cam video that he intentionally turned the plane to avoid the city and to try to maybe hit this small body of water?

GADZINSKI: Well, I'm not going to put words in the mouth of the aviation authority, who is looking at the accident? But it would be a very good bet to think that those pilots were doing everything they could to save the people on the ground and to put the airplane some place where it wouldn't harm others.

TAPPER: What does it tell you as a pilot that the stall warning went off five times in the cockpit before the crash? What does that mean?

GADZINSKI: They were right at the edge of the performance envelope for the airplane. The airplane gives a stall warning, a couple of knots, a couple of miles an hour before the wings start to lose lift. All airplanes, all transport category airplanes have a stall warning.

That warning is to tell pilots to reduce the angle of attack, to add power and to get more winds coming over the wings of the airplane. In this case, they were so close to that stall warning that they were trying to maneuver and keep the nose up of the airplane so that it would fly.

But they were just right at the edge of the performance envelope for the airplane, very hard to control the airplane in that environment.

TAPPER: OK, thank you, Captain Gadzinski, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Wolf Blitzer is here now with a preview of "THE SITUATION ROOM." Mr. Blitzer, we will hear from the Jordanian government on claims that one of its airstrikes accidentally killed an American woman. We know that they think ISIS is full of beans, as they say.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": Right, they think ISIS is totally lying. We will speak to the chief Jordanian government spokesman in Amman. We will get the latest on what Jordan is up to. As you know, they say they are only just beginning their retaliation for what ISIS did to that Jordanian fighter pilot.

They are stepping up their airstrikes. They are flatly denying the ISIS claim that Kayla Mueller, the 26-year-old American humanitarian worker, who had been held hostage by ISIS for so long, they deny that their airstrikes killed this woman. They say ISIS is fabricating the whole thing.

TAPPER: It's amazing also how many of these westerners that ISIS has so brutally slaughtered that were there to help the people of the region, either aid workers or journalists who were trying to get Syrians and Iraqis to tell their story. To a person, they were amazing people. BLITZER: They just wanted to do good. Kayla Mueller was working with Doctors Without Borders in a hospital, trying to help little Syrian refugee kids. She had earlier been in Africa. She had been in Israel, Palestine, in Northern India. Let's hope she's still alive.

TAPPER: That's what we are hoping and praying for. Wolf Blitzer, thanks so much. We will watch "THE SITUATION ROOM" in 8 minutes.

When we come back, one Republican is calling it the most offensive comment made by a president in his lifetime. What on earth did President Obama say? It has so many conservatives criticizing him.

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TAPPER: Welcome back THE LEAD. In our Politics Lead today, it was supposed to be a morning of putting down the partisanship and pausing for prayer. But President Obama's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast is coming under major criticism for a comparison that Christian conservatives are calling the worst ever made by a president.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): Conservative Christians are up in arms about remarks President Obama made at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday about the Islamic extremists the U.S. is fighting in Iraq and Syria, and the atrocities that these terrorists are committing in the name of Islam.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the crusades, the inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

TAPPER: Those comparisons did not sit well with many in the audience especially with Republicans.

JAMES GILMORE (R), FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Probably strategically and historically, the worst thing that a president could have said at this moment because of the existing crisis that is going on this day.

TAPPER: Former Virginia Governor James Gilmore says he does not understand why the president felt the need to equate ISIS militants with Christians from decades, if not centuries ago.

GILMORE: The moment calls for presidential leadership and instead, we got this moral equivalency that tried to equate Christian faith and Christian activities in the United States with the same kind of brutality that we are seeing overseas.

TAPPER: The president's remarks came one day after a private roundtable at the White House with Muslim leaders to hear their concerns about civil liberties and racial profiling.

CHRISTOPHER HALE, CATHOLICS IN ALLIANCE FOR THE COMMON GOOD: I think he's really trying to lift up this idea that Muslims add value to our nation.

TAPPER: Obama's supporters like Christopher Hale, who helped lead Catholic outreach for the 2012 campaign, say the criticism is just gotcha politics.

HALE: I think it's important that Christians do reflect honestly on our history and see both the good and the bad. I think the president was calling us to do that.

TAPPER: But some religious leaders also took issue with what they say is an unbalanced argument of moral equivalency.

RUSSELL MOORE, ETHICS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION: I don't know why the president wants to stand up and to speak as though he's in a religious studies doctoral seminar at the University of Chicago rather than standing up as the commander in chief and saying, we have an issue that threatens our national security.

TAPPER: Russell Moore heads the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm.

MOORE: It's almost as though Franklin Roosevelt were to stand up and say, "It's a day that shall live in in infamy," but let's remember that we surprised the British at Yorktown, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: That's it for "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. Wolf Blitzer and THE SITUATION ROOM start now.